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Cybersecurity Executive Brief

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Cybersecurity burst upon the
embedded systems landscape
in 2016 when the infamous Mirai
Internet-of-Things botnet took
down major websites using hun-
dreds of thousands of compro-
mised IoT devices.
1
Mirai was
possible because IoT developers
didn't include security high on
the list of design requirements
for their low-cost, widely deployed
products. This was a wakeup call
for embedded developers, whose
systems were among the first to have to coexist with Industrial
IoT (IIoT) devices.
Worse, critical embedded systems proved vulnerable to cyber-
security attack sooner than anyone had expected. Shortly aer
Mirai a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cyber Secu-
rity Division team demonstrated a remote hostile penetration
of a Boeing 757, using off-the-shelf hardware and soware
that readily passed through airport security.
2
And as recently
as August of this year, DHS issued an alert warning of hacking
vulnerabilities in Controller Area Network (CAN) data busses
used on some large aircra.
3
Cybersecurity threats reach beyond aviation: automobile auto-
mation of emergency braking, collision warning, and other driver
assistance technologies are already widely deployed. Building
automation systems have already been subject to "cyber-ran-
som" attacks that cost tenants millions of lost operating hours.
To complicate things, embedded systems specifications such
as DO-178C/278A, dating from 2012, barely touch on today's
cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and automotive systems have no
governance at all
4
, giving developers little guidance for coex-
isting in a mixed-criticality environment where malice may be
afoot. As system complexity grows, attack surfaces between
interoperating systems increase exponentially, across new bus
architectures, HMI, IP networks, data protection, both at rest
and in transit.
Foiling Cybersecurity Risks at the Source
As an embedded systems developer, you can get ahead of
cybersecurity problems through vulnerability testing, called
penetration testing ("pen testing") in the IT world, and fault
injection in the embedded engineering community.
A pen test is a simulated attack on a system to detect known
vulnerabilities. A library of known attacks, or faults, drives an
automated tool that injects each fault and analyzes the Device-
Under-Test (DUT) response. This testing uses unmodified bina-
ries, so there is no risk of unintentional interference by test
rigging. As new vulnerabilities accumulate in the fault library,
you re-run the penetration exercise as part of your standard
regression testing process.
Pen testing is one of the best ways to mitigate cybersecurity
risk, because you use it throughout a system's lifecycle: during
development, deployment, and aer each modification. One of
the most effective ways to deploy pen testing is via simulation
engines, such as Wind River Simics. Simics lets you decouple
your work from physical hardware, while still retaining the abil-
ity to connect physical hardware when required. Simics virtual
hardware gives you on-demand access to any target system,
supporting continuous integration and automated testing with
ASK THE EXPERT
SEAN EVOY
Product Line Manager,
Wind River Tools
CYBERSECURITY, IOT, AND EMBEDDED SYSTEMS:
REDUCING RISK WITH PEN TESTING